For our special 50th anniversary issue, Canada’s brightest, boldest, and most rebellious thinkers, doers, and creators share their best big ideas. Through ideas macro and micro, radical and everyday, we present 50 essays, think pieces, and calls to action. Picture: plans for sustainable food systems, radical legislation, revolutionary health care, a greener planet, Indigenous self-government, […] More »

That Catholic schools do not always look positively upon homosexuality may not come as a great surprise, given their collective track record. But in the past week, two news stories have brought new and unique anti-gay measures taken at Catholic schools to light. First, officials at Missisauga’s St. Joseph’s Catholic  Secondary School allegedly restricted students’ use of […] More »

Best Canadian Essays 2010, the second annual collection of its kind from Tightrope Books, again includes a feature article that originally appeared in This Magazine. The collection includes Paul Gallant’s essay on the state of Canada’s gay rights movement in the wake of same-sex marriage legalization, “Over the rainbow“, from our September-October 2009 issue. Sounds […] More »

When the new study guide for immigrants applying for Canadian citizenship was published last November, a reporter asked Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney why there was no mention of Canada’s world-leading (but still-in-progress!) record on equal rights for gay and lesbian people. Here’s what Kenney said: “We can’t mention every legal decision, every policy […] More »

Queer rights are on trial left, right and centre this month. Here in Canada, an HIV-positive gay couple from the States has won their appeal against Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Until now, the majority of HIV-positive applicants have been excluded because of the excessive burden they posed on health services. This couple was initially rejected, […] More »

In a case before the Ontario Superior Court this month, an Ottawa man is challenging the ban on blood donation by gay men. Currently, any man who has had sex with another man since 1977 is “indefinitely deferred” from giving blood. Not only is this ban unnecessarily broad, it does a disservice to the very […] More »

John Mathenke was once arrested for being gay but, after failing to pay the customary bribe, was forced to have sex with the policeman. He had an orgy with a priest who publicly excoriates homosexuality, along with five other Masaai boys. And his Arab trader clients curse him during the day, but come back looking […] More »

You’ve probably noticed by now, unless you’ve been hiding under a rock or just standing endlessly in line to offload your garbage, that Pride is in full swing. I have to admit I find Toronto Pride kind of overwhelming. This is largely because I come from Scotland, where Pride is shared by two cities who […] More »

It’s difficult to imagine any context in which three litres of depilatory cream, an adopted baby named O.J., and Ron Paul could come together. Of course, it’s equally difficult to imagine a Sacha Baron Cohen production in which such a whacky bunch of elements wasn’t united. Cohen’s newest movie, Bruno, to be released July 10th, […] More »